


Cheating

by Dr_Roslin



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003), Battlestar Galactica - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Drabble, Inspired by Novel, No Pregnancy, Safe to Read if Triggered by Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:13:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23382853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dr_Roslin/pseuds/Dr_Roslin
Summary: This has happened before and it will happen again.The dynamics of the search for Kobol come back to haunt Laura Roslin during the haunt for Earth.
Relationships: William Adama/Laura Roslin
Kudos: 4





	Cheating

**Author's Note:**

> ‘I don’t know what you see. I only know how to keep moving. I’m just a soldier… I can’t make myself see what you do.’
> 
> ‘I hope that one day you’re forced to believe in something for which you haven’t got a shred of proof. And I hope someone you care about laughs in your face for it.’
> 
> \- _These Broken Stars_ by Meagan Spooner and Amie Kaufman
> 
> If you haven't read this series, you should. You really should. A socialite with unexpected skills and a war hero struggle to survive being stranded on an isolated planet while dealing with unexplained developments. So, so good.

He’s cheating again. I know it, he knows I know it. It doesn’t make it any less effective. I can’t resist him when he looks at me like that. He knows it, he must. Knows I’m helpless to fight him when the weariness settles around him like a cloak, when he’s so tired, so sad that he forgets to hide it from me. It’s harder to keep my distance, in light of that, harder to fight him, harder to remember why I have to.  


So yes, he’s cheating. I’m willing to forgive him. First, because he’s so bad at it. Second because of whom he’s cheating for. I had a son, once. I can forgive Bill his love for his own, and for his daughter, even if that love is likely to lead us to ruin. Is it only my imagination, that makes me feel like we’ve been here before? That we’ve had the same fight, said the same thing? Only with each other on the other side? I wonder.  


It was I who cursed him, during that estrangement regarding that deadly green planet we call Kobol. It feels like a lifetime ago. It feels like yesterday. I’d wished the gods would sentence him to play my part, wished he’d know what it was like, to feel ridiculous, to have to argue something you’re not even sure you believe in. Have to beg when you’re only somewhat sure of what you’re seeing, what you’re saying. Have to address what you can’t afford to ignore.  


I meant to curse him, at the time, in my anger. The gods must be more impatient with me than I thought, to bring about those long-ago curses; framed in hurt and the heat of my anger.  


We’ve come so far, why are we fighting over same thing? Why do we both find it so hard to give in?  


I’d do it again go to Kobol, break the fleet, we both know that. So why can’t I accept that purpose in him? Maybe it is the gods, telling me to listen, telling me to trust Kara, telling me to trust Bill’s faith in her. Flipping the script this way to make it clear what I need to do. Or maybe I’m right; did they make Kara perfect after all? I wish I could be sure. I have to be sure. Why can’t I be sure, the way I was on Kobol, why couldn’t the gods give met that? Why do they always have to test me?  


I wish I could ask him, ask him if this was the way he felt all those years ago; before Kara left, the first time, before the anger and the hurt and the fury which ended with him throwing me in the Brig. But I know it wouldn’t help me, even if I knew the answer.  


Because I know the answer.  


He’d had no hesitation in that moment; neither did I. Is it just his love for Kara, and mine, for her, yes, and for him, that’s throwing me off now?  
Or is it something more?  


He doesn’t want me. Or, at least, he doesn’t make wanting me his priority. He lets his responsibilities, and mine, cloud his view. The sad thing is that I keep those responsibilities to the fore as well. I always have. I just don’t see the conflict. Or at least, not as he does.  


It didn’t use to bug me as much. I thought we had time. I could wear him down. Or, gods forbid, I could lose the next election, move once more into the civilian realm, freed from our shared responsibilities.  


But it’s become increasingly apparent that I don’t have that kind of luxury, don’t have that kind of time. And I’ve grown impatient with waiting, with hiding, with anything that doesn’t seem remotely necessary.  


_Diloxan. Fine. Chamallla. Fine. Quorum meetings and Press Conferences?_  


Fine. If I have to. If I must.  


_Baltar and Zarek and Lee?_  


Only if motherfrakking necessary.  


It’s funny. I’ve been close to each of these men, not too long ago. Close to all of them, closer, really than Bill would have been comfortable with. Closer than I had been with Bill, during those early days of our Exodus. Lee in particular. We’d used to joke that I knew him better than Bill did.  


I wasn’t alone in that. Memories flood me, of Kara and I, the smoke of New Caprican weed in our lungs, looking up at the bright lights of the _Galactica_ and the _Pegasus_ , each of us lost in our own thoughts. Yesturday. A lifetime ago.  


In any case, we can’t go back, no matter how much we might sometimes want to. And we can’t stand still either, however much he tries. I’m tired of pretending. I’m tired of worrying about appearances. I’m too tired and too old and too frakking sick to bother. And I’m too honest, at least with myself.  


I’m dying. I’d like to live a little first.  


Are the gods telling me to trust myself, to stay strong, protect my people from whatever threatens them; even from themselves? Or are they trying to tell me that I’m letting my anger get in the way of trusting my instincts, getting in the way from trusting what’s left of my family, getting in the way of trusting the only people who’d never let her down? The ones who try ceaselessly to help me, care for me, despite my resistance?  


Am I confusing righteousness for vengeance? I have to know.  


Because he, and I, deserve more than that.


End file.
